


Fall

by Leech



Category: Shingeki no Kyojin | Attack on Titan
Genre: M/M, Major character death - Freeform, eruri - Freeform, pre-canon a few years
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-30
Updated: 2014-11-30
Packaged: 2018-02-27 13:54:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2695469
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Leech/pseuds/Leech
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>To Erwin, Levi had never looked so small.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Fall

The trees ran red into one another, swimming his vision into a cluster of fire. It was beautiful, the forest this time of year, when the trees were turning dormant and softly, elegantly dying. The limbs that whipped past his body sent whistles through his ears, the wind he picked up knocking leaves free to tumble in his wake. Erwin, turning, could see Levi kicking up a trail of flames behind him as well.

It was beautiful. Levi looked beautiful.

Beyond the view he had of Levi could he see others, his men grappling their ways upward. There was shouting, hollering, Erwin blinking to clear his head.

“Commander!” Erwin flicked himself to turn, anchoring onto a nearby tree to slow to a stop. The forest floor could hardly be seen beneath the sweating bodies of Titans, running into one another with low, thundering moans. Waxy eyes rolled in loose sockets, watching the soldiers overhead like starved dogs. Erwin didn’t understand why so many had come. He didn’t think it possible. Did they move in herds?

Erwin’s stomach clenched at the thought, hearing someone land beside him.

“Erwin, the horses,“ Levi’s voice was stern, but Erwin could sense his apprehension. It rolled off his skin like steam, tightened his face and made his eyes go wide.

“I know,” Erwin answered. He could see the rest of his men stationed high, anchoring themselves amidst the canopy to keep far out of reach. Erwin had commanded them to for the time being.

“There must be more than twenty of those fuckers,” Levi spoke again, this time a rough bark of frustration. “We’d lose too many if we try to pick them off.”

“It’s too tight,” Erwin corrected. Levi looked to him. “If we can spread them out, we have a higher chance to find where the horses scattered.” Levi didn’t question him, as always.

“Most of them are dead.” It was Erwin’s turn to thin his lips at the remark. He knew it would be an issue. He’d seen his own scream at being tossed, spine breaking when she hit the dirt. Those first few minutes of chaos had been a symphony of helpless cries as their horses were stomped and pushed aside. Erwin didn’t doubt they’d lost too many.

“We could wait till nightfall,” Levi piped up. “They won’t be able to chase us then.”

“We can’t move that far before the sun rises. Our gear will weigh us down without trees.” The base of the tree they were planted on had grown covered during their rushed conversing, the movement of Titans trying to crawl up each other rocking the trunk with shockwaves. Erwin never forgot their clumsy strength, the brutish, mindless nature to their actions. There was no sense of direction beyond the ache of hunger. No hesitance, no morals, and nothing capable of keeping them caged.

“Erwin.” Levi’s voice rang in his ear like a spear through the head, but he kept his eyes below. “Erwin, do something!” Blue eyes flickered to gunmetal, the stark anger on Levi’s face clashing with Erwin’s own washed-out contemplation. The smaller’s eyes were wide, wider than they’d ever been—or ever would be, Erwin hoped—and his jaw was working hard to grit his teeth together. “ _Tell me to do something_!”

It slapped him across the face in a cold wave, a javelin through one ear and out the other.

“Spread them out,” Erwin commanded, shouted. “ _Spread them out_.” His voice carried off the trees, those who were close enough to hear repeating the order for others. They fell in their stationed pods. Erwin knew that if they could keep the Titans from clumping and acting—more or less—as an unintentional stampede, then killing them would become viable. Still, it was not on Erwin’s mind.

Levi was plummeting faster than him, zipping by before scooping across the top of the herd. Red and orange leaves were falling toward open-mouthed jaws, and Erwin brought himself down close enough to smell reeking breath. Three followed him immediately, stumbling and reaching out like infants. Erwin bent himself when his wire tugged, seeing one topple forward and roll underneath a fourth. Erwin took to swinging around a trunk to keep himself in their sight.

There was a loud scrape of metal against flesh and one Titan stumbled, collapsing in a heap of steaming fat. They couldn’t risk trying to pick them off so close together; the chance of snagging a wire rode high.

Levi should have known that. Levi _did_ know that.

“Levi!” he called, noticing the herd behind his four beginning to dissipate between the trees. “Levi, wait!” Levi sent him a look before diving, slashing through the side of one Titan’s face in order to get it moving. It let out a soft bellow, spinning on the ball of its right foot. Once balanced, it threw itself forward, a mess of moist breath and elongated limbs. Despite the threat, it was back on track, and Levi sent Erwin a succinct look when he drew close enough. 

“I trust you.”

It was not necessary to be stated; Levi’s actions more or less spoke numbers concerning his cooperation. But for Erwin, for the two of them, it was their way of speaking. While they couldn’t and wouldn’t intend to be expressive during battle, Levi still found loopholes. Erwin’s blue eyes softened a fraction, the stress in his face stripped to bear solitary warmth.

“I know.”

It was Levi who managed to break the eye contact, turning ahead and firing another anchor forward. Erwin did the same, separating from the other to keep firm eyes on the Titans below. Four of them, he counted. Easy enough with Levi around alongside the rest of their team, who were scattered a ways back. They knew to keep the Titans moving, let Erwin act as the head. Levi, though, never wandered far from the blond’s side in tight occasions. Unless, of course, Erwin told him to.

They took them far enough away to have room, Erwin still capable of seeing the Titans spread out behind them and around. They were too far for their four to become distracted. Isolating Titans was never guaranteed, of course. Hands finding the heavy holsters on his hips, Erwin freed his swords. His team followed suit, steadily combing over.

“The front most, with the blond hair,” Erwin ordered, Levi moving quick as a bird. He made easy work of its neck, the wide-eyed Titan beside him groping to try and reach. Douglas—a newer, spry recruit that had shown ingenuity over the past year or so—moved in to cut a chunk from its hand. The Titan’s thumb and forefinger slid off in a wet glide, Levi able to twist back and out, spring up to a safer momentum. Erwin decidedly moved now, noting the shorter Titan near the back standing almost confusedly behind the three. Its nose was sharp, and Erwin marked it mentally to keep it divided from its three companions.

His anchor landed in the meat of its shoulder, hard enough to make it stumble. The Titan turned its head some to follow the blond’s movement, casually raising a hand as if thinking it long enough to stop him. Instead did it shoot out messily, hitting a tree and knocking itself back a step. Erwin managed to unfasten from its muscle before getting dragged down.

There was a noise, the splintering of wood mingling with a shrill scream. Erwin turned.

A Deviant, knees knobby and fat hanging between its thighs, was hurdling toward them. Behind it followed five soldiers, and Erwin could see another’s wire strung about the Deviant’s neck, tight enough to cause rolls. It pulled back the left side of the Titan’s mouth, revealing hard, hulking molars, and no doubt whatever was left of the soldier attached. Douglas let out something kindred to a shriek, but Erwin couldn’t tell what he was saying. The other group must have lost control when the Deviant intruded. The blame was not their own; only poor luck could have brought another issue.

Levi was moving, Erwin following close. The Deviant seemed to hone in on Douglas, who was already perching himself higher in the orange canopy. The Titan tossed itself at the trunk, bright leaves raining down, and jumped upwards in a mock attempt to climb. Decidedly, Erwin drew back to keep eyes on the other three, accompanied soon by the fourth Titan from the west.

“Commander!” The blond turned his head to see a younger recruit, a shapely woman no older than nineteen. “Commander, it’s a Deviant! We couldn’t even get its attention—“

“I don’t need excuses,” Erwin bit out, though hardly in anger toward the brunette. She stiffened, looking to him even as his eyes roamed, no doubt awaiting direction. She was young; the man didn’t hold it against her. His lips parted to advise her as needed, only for his tongue to become lead.

There was a loud snap of wire, Erwin practically registering the vibrations as they undulated through his tightening muscles. Levi’s small frame jerked to the left, a Titan having managed to break his right wire and send him off balance.

“ _Levi_!” The name left Erwin in a burst of heat, blood turning his throat and chest feverishly hot. Levi, despite the abrupt detachment from a higher branch, managed to instead aim himself toward the sharp-nosed Titan nearest him. His anchor landed square in its arm, allowing him down in a lighter swoop before he hit the ground. His body rolled a handful of feet, tumbling over himself in a mess before slowing to a halt. To Erwin, Levi had never looked so small.

With some bit of luck, he had not fallen among the stamping feet. In fact, Levi was outside most of the chaos, save for the shorter, stout Titan Erwin had tried to take out prior. Levi’s head raised gingerly, the green fabric of his coat tugged forward and over his head from the brutal rolling. Erwin saw him rise, use his right hand to flip it back before returning to keep himself upright. He had his left arm lying limp on the ground. It must have snapped, just like Erwin’s horse’s spine.

“ _Oh, god,”_ Erwin said, though it was neither loud nor fierce. A plea, he prayed as if he feared a god to begin with. The ringing in his ears filled his head with thick cotton, made his sight tunnel and his chest tight.

The Titan was on its hands and knees, much like Levi, and kneeling down before said man. Levi’s head was cocked back, mouth open and eyes wide. Neither of them moved for what felt like minutes, the blood seemingly draining out of Levi’s face through his mouth. The Titan moved first, spurring Levi to fall backwards in haste to create distance. Large fingers gripped his leg, tugged him back on his belly across the scattered leaves. Erwin could see him clawing at the grass beneath the fiery blanket. Nausea was rocking his stomach, Erwin bereft of hearing the woman behind him screaming. It was slowing down, the Titan lifting Levi up over its mouth, the noise the small soldier gave when his leg was let loose. It caressed Erwin’s innards like a brittle stench of death.

It was the same smell on his father’s casket, how it rose over the wet dirt and clung to his skin for years, rattled in his teeth and made his ribs curl back like yellow fingernails. Erwin swallowed thick with the Titan, watching the lump travel beneath the thin skin of its throat, lowering like his father had right into the ground. Right out of his reach, far beyond the length of his voice or fingertips.

Erwin could smell it on his clothes. He’d washed the suit he’d worn with his mother, but he could smell it on his clothes.

There was a brief moment where he saw nothing, vision bleaching round the rims before eating out the middle. The wind at his back made his hair move and he thought to open his eyes. He could see the leaves, bright and smoldering overhead, falling to the ground in pieces. They were beautiful this time of year. They died in lovely ways. They were utterly beautiful.


End file.
